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Articles in the Textbooks category

Routledge publishes quality textbooks in a variety of disciplines and course subjects. We are committed to providing course materials to instructors and students that are both engaging and innovative. You can learn more about our textbooks by viewing our featured selections below in Philosophy. You can also browse textbooks in all subjects or check out our companion websites.

Recent Textbooks Articles

What is morality? How do we define what is right and wrong? How does moral theory help us deal with ethical issues in the world around us?

This second edition provides an engaging and stimulating introduction to philosophical thinking about morality. Christopher Bennett provides the reader with accessible examples of contemporary and relevant ethical problems, before looking at the main theoretical approaches and key philosophers associated with them. Read more...

The Routledge Guidebook to Einstein’s Relativity expands on and supplements this seminal text, by exploring the historical context of Einstein’s work and the background to his breakthroughs; details of experimental verification of special and general relativity; the enduring legacy of Einstein’s theories and their implications for future scientific breakthroughs. Read more...

Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks are one of the most important and original sources of modern political philosophy but the Prison Notebooks present great difficulties to the reader. Not originally intended for publication, their fragmentary character and their oftentimes cryptic language can mystify readers, leading to misinterpretation of the text. The Routledge Guidebook to Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks provides readers with the historical background, textual analysis and other relevant information needed for a greater understanding and appreciation of this classic text. Read more...

In this fully updated second edition, Jonathan Lear clearly introduces and assesses all of Freud's thought, focusing on those areas of philosophy on which Freud is acknowledged to have had a lasting impact. These include the philosophy of mind, free will and determinism, rationality, the nature of the self and subjectivity, and ethics and religion. Read more...

The Animal Mind (Routledge, 2014) introduces and assesses the essential topics, problems and debates in the field. In this exclusive interview the author tells us what first sparked her interest in the area of animal cognition and gives us a behind the scenes glimpse into her new book.

‘An outstanding, highly readable, and carefully argued introduction to a variety of increasingly important topics in philosophy. I can think of no better way to get philosophers and cognitive scientists up to speed on the issues, and I look forward to teaching this book in my own courses on animal minds.’ – Bryce Huebner, Georgetown University, USA

In this superb and engaging introduction, Steven Fesmire begins with a chapter on Dewey’s life and works, before discussing and assessing Dewey's key ideas across the major disciplines in philosophy; including metaphysics, epistemology, esthetics, ethics, educational philosophy, social-political philosophy, and religious philosophy. Read more...

The study of animal cognition raises profound questions about the minds of animals and philosophy of mind itself. Aristotle argued that humans are the only animal to laugh, but in recent experiments rats have also been shown to laugh. In other experiments, dogs have been shown to respond appropriately to over two hundred words in human language. In this introduction to the philosophy of animal minds Kristin Andrews introduces and assesses the essential topics, problems and debates as they cut across animal cognition and philosophy of mind. Read more...

For some, biology explains all there is to know about the mind. Yet many big questions remain: is the mind shaped by genes or the environment? If mental traits are the result of adaptations built up over thousands of years, as evolutionary psychologists claim, how can such claims be tested? If the mind is a machine, as biologists argue, how does it allow for something as complex as human consciousness? Read more...

Critical Thinking: A Concise Guide will equip students with the concepts and techniques used in the identification, analysis and assessment of arguments. Through precise and accessible discussion, this book provides the tools to become a successful critical thinker, one who can act and believe in accordance with good reasons, and who can articulate and make explicit those reasons. Read more...

Beginning with an overview of Hume's life and work, Don Garrett introduces in clear and accessible style the central aspects of Hume's thought. include Hume's lifelong exploration of the human mind; his theories of inductive inference and causation... Read More